Reform of the South African government's supply chain management is necessary to get better value for money, according to cabinet minister Trevor Manuel.

The minister in the presidency responsible for the National Planning Commission was speaking at a media briefing at parliament this week. He said that in an attempt to modernise the public service “we’ve actually allowed for all manner of bad tendencies to take root”. He continued that the government must ensure public sector systems are “uniform and compliant” and that better returns are made for the amount of money spent.

Manuel added: “We are pretty convinced, as a cabinet, that the idea that a public servant should be allowed to run businesses at all is a wrongful interpretation of the constitutional provision that people should have the right to have businesses.”

He stressed that no public servant should be able to contract with government, regardless of the department they work in.

Other reforms needed in the public service are - better alignment between the money allocated in budgets, senior public servants’ performance agreements and the details set out in these, and the way in which money was reported as spent.

Manuel said that finance minister Pravin Gordhan will elaborate on supply chain management reform when he presents his 2013/14 budget in parliament on Thursday.